Words of Wisdom - Part 5

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. (Colossians 3:12-14 ESV). Our fifth installment in the series Words of Wisdom is: To forgive is to set the prisoner free, and then discover the prisoner was you. One of the most beloved of poems is the 43rd Sonnets from the Portuguese, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It reads: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! --and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. However, let me tell you the rest of the story. A childhood accident caused poet Elizabeth Barrett to lead a life of semi-invalidism before she married Robert Browning in 1846. In her youth, Elizabeth had been watched over by her tyrannical father. When she and Robert were married, their wedding was held in secret because of her father’s disapproval. After the wedding the Brownings sailed for Italy, where they lived for the rest of their lives. But even though her parents had disowned her, Elizabeth never gave up on the relationship. Almost weekly she wrote them letters. Not once did they reply. After 10 years, she received a large box in the mail. Inside, Elizabeth found all of her letters; not one had been opened! Today those letters are among the most beautiful in classical English literature. Had her parents only read a few of them, their relationship with Elizabeth might have been restored. They were the poetry of love and forgiveness. Bitterness is the most dangerous of all plagues to healthy Christian living. It will eat away at the vitality of your spiritual life. It is the “cancer of the soul”, and it claims millions of victims each year. It spreads faster than the common cold and threatens the survival of many churches. Yet there is a cure for this plague. One of the most beautiful words in any language is the word “forgive.” The word is a common one, but the essence of the word is in the last part, “give”. To forGIVE means to give someone a release from the wrong that he has done to you. It means to give up any right of retaliation. Forgiveness has creative power to move us away from a past moment of pain, to unshackle us from our endless chain of reactions, and to create a new situation in which both the wrongdoer and the wronged can begin a new way. The alternative to forgiveness is, in the end, a ceaseless process of hurt, bitterness, anger, resentment and self-destruction. Do you need to do some forgiving of someone today?